20thStDad

s3mh, did you start another HAIF login as J008 just so you could put +1 on all of your posts? Or are they a real-life ABO lackey of yours?

Did all the donut shops get together and decide they would only buy the crappiest napkins? When restaurants order napkins from the catalog are the crappy ones called "donut shop" napkins?

Just tune into NOAA radio at 162.4 MHz. I listen to its online counterpart sometimes when I need a white noise to drown out a roommate or the neighbor's dog.

I do like the radio broadcasts when it's hunker-down time. Something about the sound just makes it feel like something bad-ass is gonna go down.

It's because they enunciate.

Huh, I always thought it was because they give the token update on some human atrocities taking place in Africa, read by someone with a british accent. Same thing I guess.

What's going on with The Weather Channel?

It used to be a reliable source for (of all things) weather updates. When a thunderstorm is approaching, I don't want to see a documentary about some 1950's hurricane. I want to see the current radar.

I haven't watched the weather channel in years. If I want info I can't wait until the 8s, I just do the website and get it all right now. Weather isn't that exciting. I wouldn't be surprised if they cut way down on the on air talent in favor of keeping the updates on the 8s and random documentaries.

I'd like to hear more about this. Surely the GAP doesn't send their accountant a bill. At what amount and what type of stores will actually do this?

"They" don't shop at Gap. The very thought of it makes them feel poor and gross.

I found this interesting "article" on Houston Press regarding Walmart grocery prices:

"Would Walmart Bring Low Grocery Prices to the Heights? Not Really"

http://blogs.houston...cery_prices.php

In a manner that has become the hallmark of the anti-Walmart folks, the article is completely without fact. The author compared grocery prices from a regular Walmart (not a Supercenter). Because that particular Walmart did not carry "Eggland's Best" eggs, it lost the "Egg" price category. Because that Walmart did not carry fresh produce, it also lost the "Gala Apples" and "Roma Tomatoes" categories.

The author also bashed Walmart because she could not locate any information about their "Lone Star Farmer's Market" eggs on the internet. She stated, "The 90 cent eggs offered at Walmart weren't Eggland's Best, but you can certainly purchase them if you have utter faith in buying eggs from a brand that no one has heard of, and for which absolutely no information could be found on the Internet."

Even constraining my Google search with quotations around the whole brand name, I got 570 results.

It is humorous that that anti-Walmart campaign is so outlandishly bloated with misrepresentations and misinformation that it damages their credibility.

I don't even click on those articles/blogs any more, I'm tired of reading the BS. Really those people are just wasting their time. They've already made up their mind, as would any person who reads and agrees with it have already done. In the end it's just a bunch of disseminated bitching, and there is zero point to printing/publishing it.

Next time you talk to your English co-workers, when you're done just say "ta". (as in ta-tas). The snooty Londoners will wonder who you've been talking to behind their backs.

I'll be there all next week. I'll report back on how the ta's are received.

It bothers me when people say "cheers" at the end of a phone call or email. I work with a lot of english people, so I get this a lot. I just don't follow the origin of it. "Cheers"...sounds like you are declaring that there should be cheers all around, as if some great success just happened. No, we just talked about some crap for work.

Let's see, several things come to mind. The tractor at my grandparent's house in rural Mississippi (when it's described as outside of Brookhaven it's rural) - I couldn't tell you what kind but I can find out next weekend. I remember my grandfather getting annoyed at me because I didn't quite understand the concept of the clutch and was just chucking it in gear, happy for it to go. I was 11.

Around 12 I got a new friend who had a pretty long driveway, and his parents didn't mind him going up and down the driveway in the 1989 acura integra. He also had a go cart, and of course the main purpose of that was to see how violently we could flip it and where we would end up relative to the go cart when everything came to a stop.

Official learning took place in either a 1989 gold Jeep Cherokee or a 1988 white Astro van. I much preferred the Cherokee, not just due to the bonus coolness it had, but because the Astro van seemed to have a hair-trigger gas pedal. If it was even just a little wet, the damn thing peeled out all over the place. And it didn't have the foot-width brake pedal either, it was a 3 inch wide nub pedal. Not enough. I always felt like I was going to die in that thing.

More fun than all of that was letting my little sister drive to/from school once she started high school at the same school as me (2 yrs younger). I really didn't care much and thought it was fun to give her a chance, but it was dangerous. Swerving all over. I remember one rainy day, starting off from a red light turning left, when it went green she was a bit heavy on the gas and pretty much spun us around 180 degrees and we were facing the people behind us. She flipped out a bit, but I just pointed to the right and said "that way".

I finally had some time today to go past where the pavement ends across the bridge by I-10/45. The unpaved piece isn't too long, it's a nice workout to plow through and was dry even after this wet week. From the end of that, it wasn't far at all to the new St Arnold brewery, which is what I was after. I hadn't yet seen exactly where it was. I love the area, reminds me of where my grandfather's business was in Baton Rouge (N Choctaw if any of you are familiar).

I hate the damn Galleria area. Over rated and over priced.

Exactly the kind of area that has tourists and visitors. No one stays in a hotel downtown when they come here, and very few people live downtown. That's why it's dead at night. You can't just build things downtown and expect people to journey to them. First you need to get people staying/living down there - more conventions, more hotels, more lofts/apartments.

Angry Bungalow Owner. It's like an AWP, but they try to impose their way on everyone else.

Come on guys, complimentary cooked to order breakfast?? Forget all the rabble about ugly, hook me up with a waffle stuffed with a 9 egg omelet with a pound of bacon in it!

I meant this one. I'm doing this one, not fantasy! College football >>>>>>>>>>>>>nfl.

I did it. I'm pretty sure I will lose this week, I only picked 2 dogs!! Then again we're still waiting on some lines to set.

s3mh is not a troll.

I agree. s3mh is just the leader of the ABO when it comes to Walmart and historic districts.

Maybe they could put the new location next to the west end Wal-Mart. Oh, the parking lot fights that would ensue...

Sushi Mac and Cheese from a random food blog.

i'll pass.

That's no sushi, that's just someone wasting more time than they need to on chili-mac, which should take 8 minutes to make. No Kraft stuff. Although I'll eat it from time to time and it's not bad, I would want really good cheese if I'm eating out. No powder!

Mac n philly cheese steak sandwich.

Mac n cheese stuffed flounder.

Appetizer - mac-n-cheese queso (con carne) with pork cracklins instead of chips to dip.

I'm not sure why I'm getting into this today. Maybe I'm pregnant or something.

It's so ridiculous that I almost like it. But it's too dark inside for me. Do we know if any of the turrets are rocketship escape pods? That might seal the deal.

More people (LOTS more) need to live downtown for it to stabilize and grow more. No one is going there when you have all the same crap closer to your house.

Sushi mac?!

Why not? A Philly roll already has the basic elements. It just needs a row of macaroni across the top.

I got another one - cool down some mac n cheese so it's thicker, form/roll it into balls, batter, and deep fry. Maybe they could have this available fondue style. Everybody wins, even the TMC!!

And thats the problem.

In times square there is a continually packed TGIF, AMC theatre, and kinds of other big chains Houstonians would hate to have in their downtown. Would you say New York is a ghost town? Would you say Manhattan isnt the epitome of what a vibrant big city downtown should be? Of so then there is no reasoning with you people and no hope for downtown houston, ever.

People who frequent internet message boards do not often represent the majority. I think most "average" people would probably say "oh, neat" to a TGI Friday's or AMC downtown, which is why average people generally annoy me. But there are more of them and they generally decide what succeeds and what fails in business. If I ever open a business I will aim to cater to them, otherwise you are probably just making some social statement with your money, which is just dumb.

I wasn't excited about this when the thread first popped up, but I have been on a cheese kick lately. So I'm with SilverJK, I need cheese too. And I want all kinds of different meats up in there too. Mac and cheese stuffed sausage. Brisket infused mac. Deep fried mac. Barbecue mac!!! Sushi mac...I could do some smoked salmon rolled with cheese and mac on the inside. Mac and cheese chimichanga!! DO IT!!! You are free to steal my ideas if I get free food!

But it wasn't always that way... I wouldn't have described downtown that way 6-7 years ago. And the whole period from 1998-2004 or so seemed like things were very lively in downtown, especially around Main Street.

So the question is, what happened? And once that's determined, can (and should) anything be done to reverse it?

Did those patrons just move west to Washington Ave? If so, why?

Etc...

Some of us just got older, moved out of midtown, and stopped going out. It happens. And the hip thing with kids these days is to act and look like a douchebag, which fits better on Washington than downtown.